Correlated many-body quantum dynamics of the Peregrine soliton

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum dynamics of the Peregrine soliton in ultracold bosonic gases, revealing how correlations alter rogue-wave features and demonstrating controllable generation of quantum rogue waves and breathers.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-orbital quantum model for Peregrine solitons, showing deviations from mean-field predictions and exploring controllable seeding in a non-integrable quantum setting.

Findings

Quantum Peregrine soliton has reduced peak amplitude and wider core compared to mean-field.

Correlations cause coherence loss and two-body bunching within the soliton sides.

Seeding can be controlled by atom number and box length, enabling generation of breathers.

Abstract

We explore the correlated dynamics underlying the formation of the quantum Peregrine soliton, a prototypical rogue-wave excitation, utilizing interaction quenches from repulsive to attractive couplings in an ultracold bosonic gas confined in a one-dimensional box trap. The latter emulates the so-called semi-classical initial conditions and the associated gradient catastrophe scenario facilitating the emergence of a high-density, doubly localized waveform. The ensuing multi-orbital variant of the Peregrine soliton features notable deviations from its mean-field sibling, including a reduced peak amplitude, wider core, absence of the side density dips, and earlier formation times. Moreover, Peregrine soliton generation yields coherence losses, while experiencing two-body bunching within each of its sides which show anti-bunching between each other. Controllable seeding of the Peregrine soliton is also demonstrated by tuning the atom number or the box length, while reducing the latter favors the generation of the time-periodic Kuznetsov-Ma breather. Our results highlight that correlations reshape the morphology of rogue-waves in the genuinely quantum, non-integrable realm, while setting the stage for the emergent field of quantum dispersive hydrodynamics.